Microsoft to offer Win10 as a service for businesses

news Microsoft has announced that it will soon be offering Windows 10 as a service for enterprises through the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) channel.

In a blog post penned by Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President, Windows and Devices Group, the firm said the new offering will be available from the autumn.

Currently there are more than 350 million active devices are running Windows 10. Further, other organisations are “moving quickly” to Windows 10 due to heightened security risks and the “industry-leading” security features offered by Windows 10, according to Mehdi.

“Companies of all sizes face real security threats from sophisticated hackers and cyber-terrorists, costing an average of $12 million an incident,” the Corporate VP said, adding that “critical sectors” like healthcare, legal and financial services need “strong security” like Microsoft’s large enterprise customers already receive through volume licensing agreements.

Enter Windows 10 Enterprise E3, which will provide businesses with “enterprise-grade” security and management capabilities through the CSP channel for a monthly fee of $7 per seat.

The move means CSP partners will be able to provide subscriptions to Windows 10 Enterprise Edition as part of a managed service offering.

“[This is] ideal for businesses who do not have dedicated IT resources or limited IT staff, and want their licensing and IT needs managed by a trusted and experienced partner,” said Mehdi.

The new product also rounds off Microsoft’s IT stack, with partners being able to offer business customers Windows 10, Office 365, Dynamics Azure and customer relationship management (CRM) as a per user, per month offering through just one channel.

Mehdi said that key features include increased security to help businesses protect sensitive data and identities, ensure devices are protected from cyberthreats and allow employees to access sensitive data on a variety of devices.

Additionally, simplified licensing and deployment is aimed to help businesses lower up-front costs, eliminating the need for time-consuming device counting and audits, and making it easier to stay compliant with a subscription-based, per-user licensing model.

The new offering allows businesses to move from Windows 10 Pro to Windows 10 Enterprise E3 without rebooting, Mehdi added.

Finally, partner-managed IT will allow partners experienced in Windows 10 and cloud deployments to configure and manage devices, and help businesses develop a device security and management strategy with the unique features of Windows 10.

Windows 10 Enterprise will continue to be available through Microsoft’s regular licensing programs, said the IT giant.

9 COMMENTS

Windows 10. Secure. Yep. As secure as the security update yesterday by Microsoft that a 20 year old exploit has been found, in all Windows versions from Win 10 to well…Win 95[!]: an attacker on a network can connect a bogus virtual printer and take over your PC.

The cynic in me says that July 29 is closing in and a good scare could get people to turn their updates back on and let the full screen win 10 nagware back in. I’m such a cynic. How is it that Microsoft makes me so cynical?

Honestly, for anyone on Win7 or Win8 who hasn’t upgraded to Windows 10 for free yet, I recommend they do. After the upgrade, they can instantly roll back to their previous OS. Doing so will guarantee them a free upgrade at any point in the future for that device – who knows, in 2020 when Win7 loses support from MS, Win10 might not be a hunk of shit.

I really don’t know why you’d be advocating rollback. Windows 10 is superior to 7, the only drawbacks I hear people complain about are in the UI, and there are plenty of tools that can make that look like 7 (or even XP or Win 95 if you like). Personally I’ve found the UI to improve productivity by simplifying access to and management of applications, but I realise a lot of people won’t get those same benefits because they won’t ever use the UI’s features (most users don’t even know how to use the windows key shortcuts).

I’ve successfully upgraded PCs up to ten years old to Win10 – while last year we had lots of driver issues, over the past three months we’ve only had issue with a single Ultrabook (the Asus Taichi, which was Asus’s fault because of the special software required to run the second screen), and even that was resolved by installing the Win8 drivers with WHQL driver signing disabled. My personal experience with hundreds of machines, most more than two years old, is that it works well, and once the Start Menu live apps have been customised so users just see the shortcuts they need for the software they actually use, users are comfortable with the new UI pretty much immediately.

Just make sure you go in and delete the Media Centre Scheduled Tasks, as they are severely broken and cause a string of errors quite pointlessly.

Windows (sssshhh: 7) user here. OK, I’m not a fan of {L|*}nix for the desktop, and what I’ve seen of Apple (Macs) does not inspire me, but yes, Redmond seems to enjoy being the view from the back window in security terms.

OTOH, the market leader (and oh how Redmond desired that position!) will always be the target of choice. And while other OSes may well have better security than Microsoft’s offerings, they still have their weaknesses. They just haven’t been exploited yet.

Having said all that, no machine I’ve been responsible for (all DOS and Windows) in the last 20 years has ever been penetrated. Well, there was the PIF accident, but that was an unintentional double-click after the box had been physically disconnected from the network… But no damage except to my heart. (Next time I’ll drag it to the text file window :) )

So is Windows actually that bad? For instance, that 20 year old exploit: did anyone ever manage to use it? Mind you, the number of times I’ve seen IIS installed and running by default to the complete surprise of the staff… I watched a Nimda climb up the modem pipe while the techie was celebrating its removal. He hadn’t noticed the IIS server :(

Is–or will–any OS be actually secure? I mean, smarter than the problems on the chair?

Go and take a look at the security holes patched in Windows Vs OSX Vs Linux. Windows 7 and 8 have had about half the Linux patches over the a 12 month period, and around a quarter of OSX. Yes, OSX is patching about four times as many security holes as Windows. Windows 10 pretty much halves (on average) the number of holes due to new codebase for numerous components. But all versions of Windows have fewer security patches than either of the other major alternatives.

All software requires patching, because humans write flawed code. And because new uses and techniques are found that weren’t considered when code was originally written. Patching isn’t the problem, it’s how quickly vendors respond and how good their testing is to mitigate issues before they become an issue. You know, like Heartbleed, which should have been picked up a decade before it was…

And I do remember one iteration of Netscape Communicator, which featured a non-disableable (can I say this?) pre-view pane. I don’t know how much malware found a home due to that exciting feature!

I agree with your statements about Microsoft’s poor response to security holes: “Redmond seems to enjoy being the view from the back window in security terms.” But I will always argue that the problem on the chair is almost certainly the entry point for the actual exploit. It is difficult to over-estimate the silliness of the average human.

Replace ‘silliness’ with laziness (possibly cluelessness) – the only way to approach decent security is to lock users out of the equation – either so they have no way to do any damage, or so when they do it is easy to wipe and replace. Backups with indefinitely stored increments…

I do have to say my experience with Windows has been, how shall we say… “Uninterrupted productivity.” I only update when the box develops Alzheimer’s (usually around 10-12 years due to the quality of components) which means I probably can’t get older drivers so I really do have to drag myself into the current era. Security is almost certainly improved, but (once I tweak the OS) productivity never stops.

Honestly guys. I watched PC wORLD 5 MINUTES AGO. One of their staffers showed “how to get into safe mode in Windows 10”. It was “a lot more complicated” and she finished by saying “sorry about that, I didn’t design this operating system”.

Guys. You all have to face to reality: Windows 10 is total, complete and absolute crap. It is the biggest, stinkiest turd in the history of computing. Frankly you are an idiot if you use this garbage, unless you are made to use it at work.

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